My Erstwhile Old Things Blog:

I took these instax photos late one evening - maybe around seven or eight. It stays light so long right now, who knows how late it was. I loved how blue the yard was behind my most treasured flowers, these peachy, ruffly Carding Mill roses. It was after a rain, too, so their heads were bobbing down, drowsy and heavy with raindrops.

Thank you for all the kind words about the new paintings. More flower-girls coming soon!

Most of these flower-girls have a big bunch of blossoms in their hair or a crown-type situation, but I liked the idea of a portrait or two with just one big, showy bloom. And the big, showy bloom has a small, sweet bee-friend paying a visit. Lucky bee, lucky bloom.

I was slow to like Dahlias - I'm not sure why. Maybe they seemed too pointy? But I like them very much now, almost all varieties, from little pom-pom types to the dinnerplate blooms. I also love that they bloom so much later than nearly everything else - such a kindness in the chilly Fall.

I loved reading about everyone's favorite flowers. There was so much beautiful variety in those answers - all different sorts represented, some tiny, some big, some simple, some grand (although there was a lot of love for the usual suspects: Roses & Peonies.)

They were wonderful to read - thanks for chiming in! The Spring/Summer flower channel continues with more paintings and posts soon.

These little white bells are some of my favorite shady flowers - the sheer daintiness! The scent! I planted a few dozen pips last year, and none of them came back up this year. Boo! But I'll try again someday soon when my pride isn't wounded...

I love how often Lily-of-the-Valley is used in late 19th century/early 20th century ephemera (they crop up all over calling cards and greeting cards.) Since those folks knew their language of flowers so well, I suppose they were wishing their friends and relations "sweetness, humility, and returning happiness", for that is what they symbolize.

I realized I didn't say anything about Shirley Poppies in my last post, just that I was beginning the series. Yipes! Well, truly, I just think they're some of the prettiest poppies around (and that's saying a lot, since there are so many beautiful poppies.) There are so many colors, pinks and reds and corals...they make me dizzy. I sowed some packets of seeds early this Spring (some single and some double-blooming kinds) - hopefully I'll have some later this Summer.

Do you, dear reader, have a favorite flower (or a few dozen favorites?) I love to know what blooms make other people's knees buckle.

I've been working on some new paintings - I'm conceiving of them as flower portraits. These have been bumping around in my mind for a long time now, at least a year or two...and they're finding the way out.

Shirley Poppy 11"x14"x1" Acrylic on wood

Flower portraits, meaning portraits of girls/ladies with flowers, but also loose personifications of the flower itself (or what I imagine my favorite flowers might be as a human girl.) These are inspired mostly by my own flower garden and my mother's garden, pretty girls, WPA/1930's & 40's oil portraits I admire, and though the execution is different, the idea surely has something to do with C.M. Barker's Flower Fairies, which I've loved all my life.

I'm not sure right now how many there will be (maybe a handful, maybe a lot) but it's shaping up into a series of sorts. Lily of the valley, Pansy, Dahlia, Foxglove, Geum, Rose, Anemone...there's a sing-song string of names that ring in my head, wanting to be painted.

The mix of domestic, quiet things like teapots and floral rugs, with witchy, wild, fairytale things makes for a world that is somehow soothing and at the same time, a little dangerous. I especially like her fierce dedication to pattern, which makes the illustrations feel rich and full of controlled clutter (in the way that feels cozy and not claustrophobic) and makes your eye flit all around the page.

And a few months ago, the peeks of her illustrations for the book Fairytale Food made me click quick like a bunny to see if I could get my mitts on it in the U.S. (it's published in the U.K.) and sent me whirling through the Fairytale Food blog.

The Beast in the illustration above is really the tops. I'd love to see that gentleman dressed in some kind of finery, although his fur-suit is obviously suit enough.

My Instax camera was giving me a lot of bright-light joy in my ranunculus/persian buttercup patch the other day. I plant my new bulbs in Fall, some pull through from the year before, and I look forward to the surprise melange of their blooms like a very long Christmas eve.

I don't suspect I'll be using any of the precious film on any blinding-flash, washed out low light photos for as long as the flower season is here and there are instant photos to be had of them. The amount of beauty you can get out of those little photos with enough light really surprised me. Such nice Springtime subjects certainly help. Most of my Instax photos before were blurry, blown-out snaps of Miette laying on various things (which, of course, have their charm).

There's such a magic in hopping around, snapping away as the camera spits out photographs you can hold in your hand.

A friend sent this to me on his birthday, and I said "Well happy birthday to me!"

This 1903 film, restored by the BFI national archive, is wonderful - especially the end. It has this fun, dressed-up-for-Halloween feeling, and their film tricks, like the fades between scenes and the floating Cheshire cat, are pretty fancy!

Highlights include:

-The near-perfect recreation of the Duchess scene from the Tenniel illustration-The Mad Hatter becoming violent with the (stuffed doll?) dormouse-The parade of cards at the end (that whole scene reminds me a bit of the finale of Nights of Cabiria, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in moving pictures)

Thank you for the kind words and excitement about the next book! I'll post more about it as I can. I'm excited to make lots of big paintings to illustrate it (a switch from the Oddfellow's illustrations, which are in pencil.)

I do not think you can beat travel by bird (unless it is travel by bear, for which I have a personal fondness.)

A preliminary sketch (and clue) regarding the forthcoming picture book I mentioned in my last post. I love this project so much, and it's a good thing 'cause there is so much (exciting!) work ahead. Making a book is like going somewhere else completely, and you live there and you think about the other people that live there and your mind and heart do little else other than fret every moment trying to improve the place and make it as close to perfect as your brain and fingers can possibly muster.

It's like a vacation, except you work your fingers to the bone and stay up way too late and drink too much coffee and tea and watch questionable television and try with everything you have to make it the best it can possibly be, and do absolutely nothing vacation-like at all.

- I mail-ordered a new variation of my favorite flowers and planted it last fall without seeing the blooms. The flowers are coming in now and they're the prettiest melange of peach and papaya! I love the way flowers surprise you

- Saints be praised, there are now large Moleskine sketchbooks! Having made do with the medium size for years, it makes me disproportionately happy every time I sit down to this new, sturdy, roomy one.

- I baked up a batch of petite chocolate chip & walnut cookies last night from my go-to all time favorite recipe and they turned out unusually photogenic. The stars were right.

- I'm re-reading Geek Love and finding even more to knock me down dead this time. I think the first time I read it (six years ago?), I was mostly swooning over its terrible, nervy beauty. This time, I'm bowled over by those things, but I'm also struck by the things it has to say about childhood, siblings, universal things that extend beyond the sideshow.

- And I'm hard at work on a new children's book! It's a picture book scheduled for release next year. I might share a sketch peek here soon - I'm living in the sketches right now. I want to crawl inside them all.

I think my favorite of the books, so far, is the Spitalfields Silks volume. In it, beautiful woven silks rub elbows with gridded, painted designs - a nice juxtaposition, and a testament to how lovely the planning stage can be.

Each book comes with a cd for personal use - if you run low on stationery, I think some of the patterns would make beautiful print-at-home cards. The books in the series are all nice, I'd love a little row of them on my shelves!